The Apes of Eden

Hi Guys! 

I wanted to drop in today and show you a final painted piece that wrapped up last night. Today I'll be scanning it into photoshop and fixing anything and/or adjusting any colors if need be. 

This is a cover for a self published ebook entitled "The Apes of Eden" which will be out as soon as the client and I get everything together. I'll be posting more on the release if you guys are interested in downloading. 

Here is a quick shot of the original painting (pre-title).  

The book is based on a tribe of intelligent Apes years into the future and one's quest to record their history onto tablets. It is also written in Iambic Pentameter which makes it a very unique and interesting read. 

Hope you guys have a great week!! 

October 2013 Update

Hellooooo out there!! 

I have not been back in here in a VERY long time. I decided I needed to give you a quick update on what has been happening in my own little corner of the universe.

First, my personal freelance business has really picked up!! This has been incredible and I've received orders and commissions from people outside my friend and aquantance circle!

I had to put a cap on taking any more commissions for the month of October because I got so busy!

Now granted, I had also picked up 2 other short term side jobs while doing this, so my time has been limited.  But had I not capped it, I still would have had to put off some of the incoming requests.  Those lovely people are waiting patiently for me to finish up and take on their projects in November. It's been a really interesting fall! I'm so thankful that people are coming to me to help create their vision. 

This is an underpainting of a book cover I'm working on.  Such a cool opportunity!

2ndly, I've sort of dropped into the world of Disney and shoes....

What in the world?

Random, right?

For the month of November, I've recieved 2 requests for painted shoes and multiple requests to recreate scenes and characters from Disney films.  Hey, there are worse things than getting to paint your most favorite things in the world, right?? haha!  I'm loving working on those and it puts me in my happy place.

That pretty much sums it up, I don't have a lot of spare time right now and actually I'm liking it.  Sure I'm tired and I try to take quick naps here and there, but I'm so friggin PRODUCTIVE!!  :)

I'll leave you with a quick sketch I did last night while I was literally waiting for some paint layers to dry.  

Have a great week everyone!

Upcoming Painting Project: Siren of the Sea

Hey Guys!

I know. Again I've taken my sweet time on this blog.

BUT I do have something I'm working on right now to show you!

The time of the year has come again to work on the booklets for the women's society.  I've had the privilege of producing them for the group for the last few years.

This year, I'm combining my love of the sea and a vintage flair to theme the book with mermaids a la the Coca Cola ads from the 40s and 50s!
Here's a sketch of the cover illustration...

She'll be sitting on some rocks and have a string of pearls hanging from her neck to her hand. The rest of the booklet will have ocean spot illustrations with shells, seaweed, sea stars etc.  I haven't yet decided on what element I'll add to make it pop.  I've had lace and flower seed paper in previous years.  

Check back again for the final illustration photo and some progress shots!! 

Have a good weekend!  

Diagon Alley, could there be a better place on earth?

photo taken from here

Even if you're not a huge Harry Potter fan, you might recognize this place.  Maybe not for it's content but for the name itself.  "Diagon Alley" is literally a magical place within the world of Harry Potter where wizards go to buy all things magical.  Be it wands, spellbooks, potion ingredients, owls, quills, parchment paper, school robes etc.  Every young wizard visits Diagon Alley to gather their things together for a year at Hogwarts, the Wizarding school.

My cousin is a huge fan of Harry Potter and normally, for Christmas or birthdays, we'd exchange something that had to do with owls, I'm not sure how we got started on owls specifically haha but we've found some pretty good gifts between the two of us.  Anyway, this Christmas I discovered a similar gift as the one I'm about to show you and I died when I realized I could replicate for her BUT BETTER!

I made her an actual street sign of DIAGON ALLEY!

This is an in-progress shot with blue tape around the border to keep myself from smudging it.  I apparently got so excited to wrap it up that I didn't take a final finished shot *facepalm*

I had a real street sign sans letters from a previous freelance job and it was just sitting in my room. It was fate!  First I spray painted the whole side a flat matte white and then I used sharpie and acrylic black paint for the lettering. (Next time if I do this, I'm using decal sticker letters.  It would just be so much easier)

It was a completely white sign with black typography and a black border around the edges

She couldn't believe it when she opened it. It was unexpected and completely epic. I'm actually kind of jealous.


Hope you guys have a fantastic rest of your week!!

"oh... I love... my pretty little flower... "

Have you guys seen Young Frankenstein? You know the little girl who's sitting by the well that sings that song? well, that's all the words and she repeats it over and over and over and over... and I've had that in my head the whole time I was painting tonight. So... TAG, you're IT! heehee

Tonight I was working on the cover for a commissioned booklet.  I forget how much fun watercolor can be. It can also be a bit intimidating if you try to think too much about it. But I find that if I just jump in and work from the lightest to darkest, you at least have a game plan. The rest will fall into place.

I wanted to post up some work in progress pics and then post the final image :)


This is the beginning stages, I worked up some washes of lights and since this flower was so vibrantly red, I didn't have a lot of yellows or pinks to add in. I don't normally like "local color",  which is basically light and dark of the same color hue, so I've tried to take some liberty and add in different tones of red. 

here you can see a bit more, I've used some magenta and added in some yellows on top of the red. To get the deeper tones, I did washes of pure violet on top. It doesn't change the red too much but definitely makes it richer.

Here's the final image :) after I was finished, I scanned it and removed the paper scribbles in photoshop and enhanced the red back to the original color.  The scanner sometimes tends to wash things out.

Hope you guys enjoyed this! I certainly got into the mode of painting and this project inspired me to keep these paints out!

Have a great rest of your week!!